Plot
Broken, desperate men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor risks everything to help them.
Release Year: 2014
Rating: 7.5/10 (116 voted)
Critic's Score: 89/100
Director: Jesse Moss
Stars: Jay Reinke, Keegan Edwards
Storyline
Broken, desperate men chase their dreams and run from their demons in the North Dakota oil fields. A local Pastor risks everything to help them.
Cast: Keegan Edwards -
Himself
Jay Reinke -
Himself
As I write this, I have come to the realization that the Overnighters
is among the most thought-provoking and well-made documentary movies I
have ever seen. It is beautifully composed and edited, but sobering and
utterly devastating on nearly every level.
What makes this documentary so moving is that it draws out, in very
sharp relief, the eternal tension we all have as individuals and as a
society between choosing love and choosing fear-- and rarely does the
right choice seem so unclear as it does here.
After all, it's all well and good to say "love thy neighbor" when
you're talking about neighbors as abstract entities, but what happens
when your Christian community is actually confronted with a strange set
of outsiders who walk your streets and sleep in the town's parking
lots? How do you react when they seem like scary and violent intruders,
the source of crime and chaos in your formerly sleepy Northern town?
Then, suddenly, the teachings of Jesus must be rendered unambiguous:
are these proclamations to "do unto others" just nice-sounding but
impractical platitudes, or are they words to live and act by even when
(especially when?) they are difficult?
We find this out when the protagonist of the documentary, a small-town
pastor in a newly-booming oil town in North Dakota, bravely tries to go
far beyond just 'talking the talk' with regards to living out the
Bibical teachings. By providing refuge and food to those who have no
other place to turn, his church floors become flooded with destitute
men and women who have spent their last pennies making their way up to
this otherwise desolate land in search of the rumored well-paying jobs
that can save their families, salvage their broken lives, and restore
their faith in America. These "overnighters" have nothing, and rely on
the pastor's kindness to survive until they find the jobs they
desperately seek. But they also come with their own problems-- problems
that the rest of the town isn't eager to deal with.
Over time, we find that this well-meaning man of God-- who is
resolutely chained to the idea that he must not simply repeat the ideas
of Jesus, but truly live them out-- must travel alone in his journey to
do the Lord's work. And it is a path he will pay very dearly to walk.
*spoiler alert* He soon finds, like Jesus himself, that all those who
surround him will eventually turn on him; first his congregation, then
his community, then the destitute overnighters he saves from the
streets, and ultimately his own family. Once the final twists and turns
make their way through the pastor's life, one wonders if God too has
chosen to abandon him.
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